The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

by Laura E. Campbell, Shields Library, University of Califonia, Davis, Califonia, and
Morgan T. Lockwood, Davis, Califonia

The napkins provided in fast food restaurants vary in their abilities to sop up stains. As a service to both the public and the restaurants, we measured the sop-up efficiency of the napkins provided at these establishments.

Assessing the Napkins
We tested napkins from five competing fast food establishments:
Carl's Junior
Taco Bell
Jack in the Box
McDonald's
Burger King
Kentucky Fried Chicken

The tests used maraschino cherries, the juices of which produce red rings on napkins. These rings are easy to measure and compare.

Figure I. Napkins from Carl's Junior. Taco Bell (T), Jack In The Box (J ), McDonalds (M). Burger King (B) and Kentucky Fried Chicken (K ). Each napkin Sopped lip the juices from four half-cherries. For each napkin, the four radius lengths were averaged. The average sop area was then calculated and compared with the total napkin area to obtain the napkin sop factor.

We used cherries that were 19-20 millimeters in diameter. Each cherry was hCllved at its equator. We used a Solingen 20 centimeter French-bladed kitchen knife. When this was completed, 2 cherries- that is, four cherry halves-were placed on each folded napkin (see Figure 1). After 5 minutes had elapsed, we measured the size of the circles of red moisture that had soaked through to the back of each napkin. (see Table 1).

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As a counterpart to the supercut of Kids Dancing to Taylor Swift's “Shake It Off,” Robert Jones has compiled a video of older people dancing, this time to “Turn Down for What” by DJ Snake & Lil Jon. Some are classic clips you’ve seen before, while others are just found footage that works. If you want to see more, there’s a list of all the source videos at the YouTube page. -Thanks, Robert!

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The 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey gets a kaleidoscopic techno remix by Eclectic Method.

This mix contains almost every scientific prediction in the film mixed with the space age synth sounds that were just around the corner. Much that Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke predicted has come to pass - touch screen portable computers, video phones, Space Stations, in-seat video entertainment, computers beating humans at chess. So far though, Siri hasn’t switched off anybody’s life support.

It strikes me as the other end of the spectrum from sitting through two hours and twenty minutes of bafflement; in this version, you get a all the bafflement in only three minutes. -via Geeks Are Sexy

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Italian chef Pasquale Sciarappa speaks English much better than I speak Italian, but his struggle with the pronunciation of Worcestershire sauce is priceless. The sauce is named after the county in England, Worcestershire, meaning the shire of Worcester. An American would sound it out as written if they didn’t know the British pronounce it “WOOStershur.” However, the Italian pronunciation of the phonemes as written is quite different. After Sciarappa struggles with the common pronunciation, he gives us a rundown of how it would sound in Italian.      

Chef Pasquale has a recipe website and a YouTube channel devoted to Italian recipes plus a series on Italy. -via Tastefully Offensive

If you want to provoke an argument, just try to tell someone that their favorite video game didn’t make the top 50. Business Insider took that chance, and presents a ranked list.

We did have some parameters, however, when choosing the games: This list includes console video games, spanning from the 1980s to today, and includes only games from more-modern consoles (sorry, Atari and ColecoVision fans!). In most instances, we chose an entire franchise or series of games, rather than just one, as our favorite.

We also took into consideration Metacritic scores, user reviews, as well as our own personal experience to choose the games on this list.

Not being much of a gamer myself, I don’t have specific quibbles with the list. The games at the top (which are at the bottom of the page) are long-lived franchises that people still play like crazy. The comments at the post, of course, contain angry gamers pointing out the omissions. You might have some opinion on the list yourself.    

(Image credit: Flickr user Ricardo Alguacil)

The annual Leonid Meteor Shower is taking place most of the month of November, but peak activity, with around 15 visible meteors an hour, will be tonight between midnight and daylight Tuesday morning.

The Leonids are best viewed starting after midnight. Find an area well away from city or street lights. Come prepared with a sleeping bag, blanket or lawn chair. Orient yourself with your feet towards east, lie flat on your back, and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient -- the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.

The moon is waning, so that light shouldn’t interfere too much with stargazing. It’s raining today where I am, so clouds may obscure the view. And of course, laying on the ground for hours is not as easy in November as it would be in June. If you can’t get out to see the meteor shower, the Slooh Space Camera will be streaming the event live.  -via HuffPo

(Image credit: Flickr user Ed Sweeney)

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You’ve heard it said that the U.S. and England are two countries divided by a common language. You can says that the U.S. and Australia are divided by a common language plus 12,000 miles. Mark and Christi Brown are a bicontinental couple -she’s American, he is Australian- who are teaching us the different words of their different languages. “Australian” as a language is close to British English with some colorful additions and wide-open pronunciations. The words can get confusing sometimes. In the followup video, they address common phrases as well, and we get some stories from their cross-cultural relationship. 

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-via Viral Viral Videos

Some mothers in Japan make creative bento lunches for their children every day -and they make them for their husbands, too. Every once in a while, married people are not on the best of terms with each other. A woman who gets up to make bento for a man she is angry with may make a lunch that differs from the usual creative, lovingly-packed lunch. The blog IroMegane collected some examples of Shikaeshi Bento (仕返し弁当) or “revenge lunchbox,” for which you can imagine a salaryman opening his lunch in front of his co-workers and finding out exactly how angry his wife is with him.

Some have snarky sayings cut from seaweed, in Japanese, so you have to read the captions. Some are illustrated, like the cockroaches at the top. Others are just difficult, like the corn. All he has to eat it with is chopsticks! See more of these at IroMegane. -via Metafilter

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In this TED-Ed animated lesson, Sarthak Sinha of the University of Toronto explains the process that goes on under our skins when we have a wound to the skin. Sinha thought the lesson was incomplete without explaining the process of scarring. Continue reading to see the followup video.

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You knew it was coming sooner or later: a mashup of Breaking Bad and Frozen. This animated parody from animeme revisits Walter and Jesse in their later days, to the tune of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” The lyrics are at the YouTube page. But the question remains: does Jesse want to build a meth lab?

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 -via reddit

The following is an article from Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader. 

This article started off as a short list of facts about the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620. But after doing a little research, we found ourselves immersed in a much more fascinating story than we anticipated -the tale of the Pilgrims’ journey to the New World and religious freedom. Here’s part one, which begins more than a century before the Pilgrims ever set sail.

UNHOLY ROMANS

Most modern democracies regard freedom of religion as a basic human right, but if you lived in Europe in the late Middle Ages, it was a very different story. The Roman Catholic Church was the state church in most of Western Europe. Although there were periods of tolerance for other religions scattered throughout the era, intolerance was largely the norm. But by the 16th century, things were beginning to change.

It all began with the Protestant Reformation, which traces it roots to the German monk Martin Luther, who in 1517 mailed his 95 Theses do the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. Sharply critical of the corruption of the Church, Luther’s writings (which spread throughout Europe thanks to another new invention, the printing press) ignited the growing contempt for the Church in other countries. By 1534 the discontent had spread to England, where King Henry VIII cut ties with Rome and founded the Church of England, also known as the “Anglican” Church.

REFORM

But Henry had a personal reason for the break. Luther and the other Reformers broke from Rome on religious principles -they wanted a Church without a pope, or bishops, not to mention corruption. The Bible was supreme, they said, and wanted it translated into common German (instead of Latin) so that common people could read and interpret it for themselves.

Henry’s reason: The pope wouldn’t grant him a divorce. His aging wife, Catherine, hadn’t given birth to any male heirs, so the king wanted to divorce her and marry his “consort,” Anne Boleyn. Henry defied the pope: he divorced Catherine and married Anne anyway… and was promptly excommunicated. So in 1534, he created a new state religion, the Church of England, proclaiming himself as its leader.

PURITANS AND SEPARATISTS

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Queso is a pit bull with some issues. He suffers from phobias. According to his owner, he is afraid of “the kitchen floor, the printer, and doorways” among other things. Oh, he can face his fears; he just can’t face them head first. Speculation is that he ran into a glass door a few too many times in the past. Queso has figured out a workaround for getting through doorways, as you’ll see in this video. -via Tastefully Offensive

If you’ve surfed the internet at all in the last couple of days, you’ve seen references to Kim Kardashian’s photo spread in Paper magazine. The cover shows a rear view of her most prominent asset. It’s been discussed and passed around so much that LEGO artist Ochre Jelly (Iain Heath) couldn’t resist recreating it in LEGO.

I get the impression that Heath didn’t have enough bricks to accurately recreate the magazine cover image. However, his completely plastic version looks more natural. -Thanks, Iain!      

With so much publicity for Kim Kardashian’s butt on the cover of Paper magazine and Nicki Minaj’s music video for “Anaconda,” Jezebel takes the opportunity for a look back at the original booty queen, a 19th-century woman billed as “The Hottentot Venus.” Saartjie Baartman grew up in what is now South Africa, a member of the Khoikhoi people, who the Dutch called Hottentots. Her remarkably generous backside gave her employer the idea of taking her to Europe and exhibiting her for the masses who’d never seen such a thing.

Like Kim, Saartjie (pronounced Sar-key) was voluptuous but tiny. She stood four feet, seven inches to Kim's purported five-three. Unlike Kim, she didn't just have her sizable assets in the way of talent. (Whether 'balancing a champagne glass on your ass' is a talent remains up for discussion.) She had learned and practiced multiple instruments in her native land (in what is now South Africa). On the stages of London and Paris, she regaled packed audiences with singing, dancing, and instrumental routines. When it comes to her contemporary booty-sisters, she is less Kim Kardashian, more Nicki Minaj.

"She had enormous skills," says Tamar Garb, professor of art history at University College London and a native of South Africa. "She spoke many languages—Dutch, English, some French, and her maternal tongue. She was very literate and sophisticated. The show she put on was very much a performance, even if the role she was required to play was that of a 'savage' femininity."

Baartman became the toast of Europe, both as a curiosity and as a performer. And unlikes many people exhibited in the freak shows of the time, she was a willing participant in her show business career. Read Baartman’s life story, and the account of how she finally returned to South Africa, at Jezebel. The article contains nude illustrations.  

For some time, the common image of antique collectors was overwhelmingly feminine, the kind of person who collected old furniture, glassware, china, and jewelry. But that was just the popular image. There have always been men who appreciate the quality of things made long ago. However, men tend to collect more varied objects, such as gadgets, military memorabilia, tools, toys, and things that are hard to classify. A new word sprang up to describe these antiques: “Mantiques.” Collectors Weekly talked to Eric Bradley, author of Mantiques: A Manly Guide to Cool Stuff, about the new crop of male collectors.  

Collectors Weekly: Do mantiques collectors skew younger than regular collectors?

Bradley: I think so. An older generation took the approach that if you were going to start collecting, you itemized what you needed to acquire and then set about acquiring each piece to accumulate the whole set. Today’s mantiques collectors are a lot more laid back than that. They’re not so interested in being completists. Instead, they’re surrounding themselves with interesting things. Some of them are collecting strictly for décor and searching for objects that just look neat. Maybe you have a collection of three vintage typewriters, but you’re not going to necessarily fill your basement or try to obtain every typewriter that was ever made in Germany. But those typewriters look really cool on a shelf in your living room.

Read the rest of the interview, learn about some of the cool things that people collect, and see a gallery of awesome pictures from Bradley’s book at Collectors Weekly.